


Endurance

by bgd_thrifty



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark, Depression, Domestic Violence, M/M, Mpreg, Psychosis, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-03
Updated: 2012-07-03
Packaged: 2017-11-09 01:58:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bgd_thrifty/pseuds/bgd_thrifty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the steady deterioration and eventual breakdown of his relationship, Harry finds it hard coping alone with his 'bundle of joy'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Endurance

**Author's Note:**

> Ridiculous praises go to my beta anulira who made me feel like I was writing a actual book - red pen has never looked so lovely. Any remaining mistakes are due to my inability to stop editing. This fic is my harrydracompreg surprise hit! I was so pleased with the response to this, as I was expecting people to be dissuaded by the heavy warnings. But they weren't and I'm so very happy that people seemed to enjoy it so much. I have such a love for this little fic I've written because it demonstrates my favourite Malfoy: a cold and terrible man who I can't get enough of.

It ends with a birthday party.  
  
“Harry, why the _fuck_ would I want to go the Weasleys’ hovel and try to play nice?” They’ve been yelling at each other for hours and Harry is sick of it. Harry can’t understand why Draco can’t do a single thing for him without making it into a nasty production, Harry has no idea.  
  
“Maybe because I haven’t seen you for weeks and you’re off again tomorrow? Sorry that I might want to spend time with my sorry excuse for a spouse.” There are twin spots of crimson high on Draco’s cheeks and the surrounding skin is white. Harry doesn’t care. He’s angry too. Angry that his life choices have led him to this: arguing in the kitchen of a house he hates with a man he’s supposed to love but just doesn’t.  
  
“ _I’m_ the sorry one? Take a look in a mirror, Potter. You look like shit.” It’s no new insult, but still it hits Harry hard. He runs a shaking hand through his admittedly messy hair and tugs on his threadbare t-shirt. He’d been meaning to change, but their raging argument had swept it out of his mind. He hasn’t felt well recently – his insides often seem as though they’re rearranging themselves – and Draco has been less than sympathetic. Draco likely would have had a few choice cruel words regardless of his clothes. If it isn’t a criticism of what’s he’s wearing, it’s a sly aside about how vampiric he looks. Harry can’t win.  
  
“What the point in looking good when – as I see you haven’t even bothered to _try_ to dispute – there’s never anyone here to impress?” Draco’s eyebrows shoot up and his face scrunches in disgust.  
  
“That’s absolutely pathetic,” he says, smoothing the cuffs of his neatly pressed robes. Harry’s pretty sure he bought them, knowing Draco’s penchant for the luxurious – or just plain expensive – and perfectly willing to indulge him. Harry withers at Draco’s statement, this last in the barrage of insults proving too much.  
  
“Okay, yeah. Maybe it is. But I miss you when you’re gone.” Time was that this would be the end of the argument. Draco’s fierce expression would soften and he’d give in to Harry’s ‘unreasonable demands’. This time, Draco’s gaze stays frigid.  
  
“Would that I could say the same,” Draco scoffs. Harry takes a reflexive step back, stinging from the blow. His mouth opens and closes but he has nothing to say. He begins to twist the ring on his left hand nervously, hardly aware he’s doing so.  
  
“I… I just wanted to see Hermione. It’s her birthday today,” he says, though he knows it sounds like pleading. But if Harry shows up without Draco, the careful silence of his friends – who are so gracious in accommodating the absence of his spouse time and time again – will kill him. This was a mistake, they all knew it from day one. Maybe it’s taken Harry longer to realise it, but he is finally starting to get the picture.  
  
Draco advances on Harry until Harry is backed up against the hard marble edge of the counter. They stand there face to face, their breath mingling.  
  
“I hate your friends. I hate every last one of them. And I especially hate your blood traitor best friend and his mudblood bitch.” Draco spits each word and they violently strike at Harry, eating away at him. This is too much. Harry considers himself fair game for insults in an argument, but Draco’s never gone this far before. And even when Draco’s in a towering snit, there are things he knows are off-limits and blood purity is one of them. Harry usually tries not to think about whether Draco believes in all that nonsense. He has no idea how much stock Draco still puts in the ideas his father espoused.  
  
He also doesn’t care. Hermione and Ron have stood by him for fifteen years, supporting him in his good choices and through his mistakes. They’ve had their disagreements, of course, but unlike Draco, they’ve always forgiven him if he misspoke and apologised when they themselves were wrong. As Harry looks into Draco’s flinty eyes, he feels a weight settle upon his shoulders. He looks away.  
  
“Well then,” he says, turning away from Draco. As he walks to their bedroom, his feet are heavy. It won’t be hard to leave this place, he thinks. There’s barely any of him here, is there? Tasteful greys and blues decorate living spaces that never warm even when a fire crackles in the hearth. Harry prefers deep, bold colours, not these lifeless hues. Draco had insisted though, and Harry had found the tantrum endearing at the time. Now, he’s glad there’s so little of him in the house. It would be far harder to leave this place if it truly felt like his home.  
  
Harry turns at the doorway, desperately hoping for some sign that Draco _cares_ – he _must_ know that this is the last straw. But Draco just sits at the table, holding a newspaper in front of his face and studiously ignoring him. That’s fine. The Dursleys taught Harry well to recognise when he’s not wanted. It doesn’t take long for Harry to pack. He summons his possessions from their various homes, trying hard not to look around at his life unravelling. It doesn’t work.  
  
His eyes fall upon item after item: evidence of their baffling romance. The last thing he packs is a photograph. It is of them sitting on a park bench – if Harry strains he can just about see it from their bedroom window – and it would probably seem very unremarkable picture to anyone else. But not to Harry. Taken in the first few months after Harry and Draco’s wedding, the photo shows a couple in love. Harry wonders where they went. He picks the frame up and packs it in his trunk before shrinking the whole lot down and putting it in his pocket.  
  
When he stops procrastinating and turns around, Draco is standing in the doorway. Harry waits for Draco to say something, anything, to make him stay. When no such appeal is forthcoming Harry attempts to slip past Draco but a shove to his shoulder sends him sprawling to the floor. Harry stumbles to his feet, in shock, only to be punched down. He knows his nose is broken, knows what it feels like from the last time Draco broke it – he stamped on Harry’s _face_ , how had Harry ever thought this would work? – and blood gushes down his face. Harry feels his heart breaking, too. They’ve had physical scuffles before, ones that could get them put in jail, even. But the last time they had one, they also healed each other’s hurts. Now Harry realises that that will never happen again.  
  
“Get the fuck out, then! I gave up on us a long time ago, it’s about time you did as well, don’t you think?” Harry doesn’t know if Draco means that but is suddenly too tired to figure it all out. Draco is still shouting, but Harry can’t hear anything past the ringing in his ears. He doesn’t try to get past Draco again but he doesn’t need to anyway. He Disapparates, resolving to never set foot in this place again.  
  
Ron and Hermione’s house may be a dump to Draco, but there’s more of Harry here than there ever was in the house he shared with his husband. He’s sorry that he’ll ruin Hermione’s birthday, but he knows she’ll understand.  
  
**  
  
He sends the divorce papers on a Tuesday night, close to midnight.  
  
His hands shake but his mind is made up. He receives a reply in the early hours of the next morning. Draco hasn’t contested the statement of unreasonable behaviour and irreconcilable differences and obviously wants this over with as soon as possible. Harry doesn’t blame him: they’re evidently incompatible and their relationship is irrevocably damaged now. Why argue any part of this when they both know exactly what faults lie at their own door? Well, at least Harry does. He clearly never knew Draco as well as he thought he did, not that it’ll ever matter now.  
  
Maybe it’s the nerves getting to him, but his stomach rolls over with a lurch and Harry has to clap a hand over his mouth to stop last night’s dinner from making a hasty reappearance. The bug that he thought he had gotten over is making a resurgence and if Hermione notices, she’ll pack him off to St. Mungo’s without so much as a by your leave. Harry’s had enough of making stupid decisions and people treating him like a child for it. He’ll go himself and get whatever potion will fix this. Right after the world has finished spinning.  
  
**  
  
When Harry gets back from the hospital, he goes back to his flat, falls on the sofa and pretends that he never left in the first place.  
  
A few years ago, before Draco and Harry were Draco-and-Harry, George had experimented with a new line of unorthodox sweets. One of those ‘Wheezes’ caused symptoms of morning sickness in those that consumed the small striped sweet. Harry had found it funny until he discovered first-hand that it worked on men as well. After promising George that he wouldn’t curse him in revenge, he asked him what had gone wrong with the charms on the confectionery in the first place. George had been confused to say the least.  
  
 _“Well, it shouldn’t have worked on me, should it?”  
  
“…Don’t see why not, mate.”  
  
“George, I’m a bloke! Bit of a fault right there. Can’t believe you didn’t think of that.”  
  
“You’re kidding, right?”_  
  
While the range of pregnancy simulating sweets never made it to market – George was too unnerved by the thought that people out there wouldn’t have the foggiest what was going on – their brief existence led to Harry’s eyes being opened to the biological differences between the magical population and Muggles.  
  
Now, lying on the sofa having woken from a fitful slumber, he wishes he could redo that day. If he hadn’t eaten that sweet, if he hadn’t found out from George about wizarding pregnancies, he wouldn’t be in this position. Harry knows it’s silly, but he clings to the fanciful idea anyway, little comfort though it is.  
  
He thinks about getting rid of it, but knows he won’t. Doing that means acknowledging that this has happened. Acknowledging that he is having a child with a man that he can’t bear to be in the same building as. It is so much easier to just ignore the progression of weeks and months until it is too late to do anything but wait for the birth.  
  
No one knows what to say to him. The first person he tells is Molly, when everyone is gathered at the Burrow for a de-gnoming party, and the look of pity on her face makes him regret telling her in the first place.  
  
“What are you going to do?” she asks him, stroking the back of his hand soothingly. His answer catches in his throat and he closes his eyes, swallowing against the stone suddenly lodged there.  
  
“I dunno,” he finally managed to mumble, and Molly comes round the table and hugs him. He doesn’t cry – he hasn’t been able to make tears come for years now – but he presses his face into her warm neck and breathes. She’s the closest thing he has to a mum, and if he doesn’t think about it too much, he can pretend that her hair is the same shade and length as his mother’s in the pictures he has of her. Covered by a veil of coppery hair, he is safe.  
  
“It’ll be alright, darling,” she says as everyone floods in from the freshly de-gnomed garden. Harry shakes his head and not-cries some more, ignoring the peppering of questions from all corners.  
  
He isn’t sure if things will ever be alright again.  
  
**  
  
Arthur mends a lovely baby’s crib and gives it to Harry.  
  
It’s wonderful, all smooth, dark wood – none of those terrible pastel colours people like to fill their nurseries with. Not that Harry can say much about decorating - all he’s done is paint the walls gold. The crib sits in the centre of the small room, devoid of any other furnishings. Harry hasn’t bought any; doesn’t want to buy any. He’s been offered help by any number of people, but Harry is sick of them coming to his flat and looking around in dismay at the living space he is _yet again_ failing to make his own. He blocked off his Floo for a few days before Hermione’s frantic owls started to morph into well-meaning Howlers. Harry unblocked it with the caveat that if he doesn’t want company, they won’t come through. He rarely does and so they don’t.  
  
Yesterday, he sat in bed and pinched the skin on his stomach repeatedly. He does the same today. It leaves a nasty bruise but also makes the baby kick and, well, Harry doesn’t have a lot of things to smile about these days.  
  
**  
  
Harry tries, once, in a fit of nostalgia, to make amends.  
  
In hindsight, sending Draco an inflammatory letter after the papers to finalise the divorce come through is probably not the best way to go about it. Harry has never claimed to be an expert on relationships, though. He did it because he knew it would get a rise from the man who has rebuffed any contact from Harry since they separated. Draco storms through the Floo, his fury expressed in every line of his body and Harry is terrified. Unconsciously, an arm moves to protect his stomach. He’d been pregnant the last time Draco knocked him to the floor, but he’d not known it then, of course. If he had, he wouldn’t have lingered long enough to have his nose broken. A nasty hex and a quick escape would have been the route he chose. This time, he’s scared that a fall will be the end of this new little life he’s harbouring, and he backs away from the fireplace, wand gripped tightly in hand.  
  
Draco doesn’t move and his mouth opens and closes uselessly. Finally, he speaks.  
  
“You… what?” Harry doesn’t reply, just watches Draco’s wand hand carefully. He knows how quick on the draw a Malfoy can be when enraged. But Draco seems to be folding in on himself.  
  
“Is that mine?” he asks, waving vaguely at Harry’s stomach as the anger drains from his figure. Harry is tired of being a fucking wet blanket.  
  
“No. It’s _mine_.” Harry doesn’t care that he sounds childish, that anyone sensible would tell him that _he’d_ been the one that wanted Draco here. Now that Harry can see Draco’s pinched, pale features, he wonders what the hell had managed to make them stick together for so long.  
  
Draco sneers, but it seems half-hearted and falls from his face quickly. The only sound is the ticking of the clock. It feels like hours before Draco seems to come out of whatever stupor he’s gone into, staring at Harry’s swollen abdomen.  
  
“I… Congratulations, Potter.” Draco’s behaviour is infuriatingly distant and Harry snarls. Draco never reacts to anything in the way Harry wants him to and was it so much to ask for Draco to make some kind of indication that they can fix this? Harry suddenly realises the direction his thoughts are taking and is disgusted at himself.  
  
Draco lets himself out and Harry is left alone once more. Slowly, he uncovers his stomach – now that the danger is passed – and carries on with his day. His hands don’t stop trembling until later that evening but he imagines it is due to anger instead of sorrow.  
  
**  
  
Hermione was far keener than he was – she planned for every eventuality and even marked the due date on a calendar after one particularly embarrassing conversation.  
  
Harry let her. He supposes it’s good that someone’s enthused about everything that’s to come. Harry’s been in limbo, just waiting for his nine month sentence to be up. As with all biological matters, not everything goes to plan. Five weeks before it’s supposed to, the baby comes. Harry takes himself to St. Mungo’s, feeling rather strange as he packs his own things up. He doesn’t tell anyone where he is going. In the hospital, he is bundled away to his own private room. It isn’t anything like what Harry’s seen on Muggle telly.  
  
“Is it okay?” he asks nervously, pulling at a loose thread on his jumper. He knows this happens all the time, babies coming early. Harry just never thought it would happen to him.  
  
“Things seem to be progressing well, Mr Potter,” the Healer says, and even now it’s still a bit of a jolt. He’s always been a Potter – could never _not_ be – but he’s not used to not being part of Mr-Potter-and-Mr-Malfoy.  
  
It hurts. It hurts when the baby comes and Harry hasn’t anyone to reassure him but the medical staff, and he is keenly aware that it is their _job_ to keep him calm and make sure this goes smoothly. He wishes he’d told somebody where he was going. He hasn’t cried for years, but he’s sure a few tears escape during the process. He definitely screams. His hands clench and unclench, questing for a warm palm to hold onto, to anchor him. The midwitch asks him if he wants pain relief, but Harry declines. He did this to himself, didn’t he? Well, now he’ll face the consequences.  
  
Harry calls the baby James, easily imagining Draco’s scathing comments: _It’s unhealthy to name children after dead people_. Back when they thought they might actually have children together, arguments about names had been decidedly common. Harry doesn’t fill in a middle name, but when he looks down at little James’s soft face, he knows it is Scorpius. He leaves the other parent’s name blank.  
  
**  
  
The next few weeks are a hazy blur and Harry’s memories of them blend together.  
  
James won’t stop crying and Harry is at his wit’s end. When he left the hospital, they gave him potions to enable him to feed James himself. He used them for just a few days before his nipples began to crack. After that, he poured them down the sink. The right side of his chest throbs, but he’s sure that if he ignores it, it will go away soon. When he sneaks out to Muggle London to find a formula suitable for a newborn, he knows the people jostling around him are all judging him as he stares blankly at the myriad tins all claiming to be the best for his child.  
  
There are so many things Harry knows he’s supposed to be doing, but he can’t remember. He can’t even wear t-shirts anymore, even the light contact being too painful for his right nipple. The whole area is red and swollen and it worries him. But he’s closed the Floo and warded the flat and giving up now and showing everyone that he can’t do this by himself – would destroy him. He knows he’s had a visit from St. Mungo’s Healers. He also knows that they weren’t able to get within ten feet of the front door. He’s a sad sight anyway: half naked with a sagging stomach and angry red lines all over him.  
  
The nappies he has are too big or he’s putting them on wrong and Harry isn’t convinced that the shit leaking out of it and through all James’ clothes is supposed to be that colour or consistency. James throws up and wails weakly afterwards and no amount of rocking and shushing can calm him. He is so small and Harry is sure that’s he’s fucked this up completely but he is paralysed. Just one Floo call would have this fixed but he’s sure that if he does that now, after all this, they’ll take James from him and he’ll be completely alone.  
  
Harry hasn’t slept properly since they came home. He wakes in the middle of the night, scared that James has suffocated in his sleep. No matter how quiet he is, he always wakes James when he enters the nursery and he’s sure the baby hates him. He is the worst father imaginable and he can’t help but think how ashamed his own parents must be of him, wherever they are.  
  
If Harry had been worried about not being able to cry, he certainly isn’t now. Anything can set him off. He’d dropped a bowl of cereal after a long, sleepless night and the bowl had smashed, sending shards of ceramic and splashes of milk all over the white tiles. He’d stared at it for what must have been an hour, hot tears coursing down his cheeks before turning around and leaving it there.  
  
Harry realises with a jolt just how badly things are going when he tries to give James a bath one day. He’s supporting James in the baby bath, splashing him absently and appreciating the lack of wailing – although he knows it will start again soon. A thought intrudes upon his exhausted peace as if someone’s cast _Imperius_ on him and it has actually worked.  
  
 _‘Let go,’_ it says, and he doesn’t understand at first. When he does, a slimy feeling creeps up his chest from his stomach and his hands begin to tingle. He could. He could let go and watch James struggle. He’s too young to keep his head up by himself. He wouldn’t even know what was happening, would he? Harry wouldn’t be able to live with himself, but he wouldn’t have to. Not for long.  
  
He looks down at James’s tiny face and is keenly aware that he holds a life in his hands. James looks up at him with large eyes and an open, toothless mouth and kicks jerkily in that way that only babies do.  
  
Harry feels outside of himself as he watches himself slip his hand out from its supportive position. _‘He deserves better,’_ he tells himself and somehow it makes sense. Snot runs from Harry’s nose and his eyes burn. James begins to cry and the sound shatters Harry’s dissociation. He begins to shake and pulls James out of the bath, his heart pounding like he’s run a marathon. He swaddles James in towels and dresses him. It is easier than any of the previous times he has done so.  
  
Mechanically, he places James in his crib and backs away to slide down the nursery wall. The rest of the flat is a tip, and he hopes they won’t judge him too harshly when they come to take his son. He waves his wand, bringing the wards down, and buries his face in his hands. His shoulders heave as he hears the multiple cracks of Apparition and his breath comes quicker and quicker at the raised voices.  
  
Oblivion has never been so sweet.  
  
**  
  
Harry cannot dispute the custody order that comes through from Draco and he isn’t offended by it.  
  
He’s fucked in the head and the further James is from him, the better. When they asked him what happened, he’d been lost for words. Pensieve memories had had to suffice, he’d been so ashamed as they picked through his disastrous attempt at parenting. He’s a danger to his son, he shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the baby. They’ve tried to tell him something about depression, but Harry is sure that depression makes you want to hurt _yourself_. Only fucked up people want to kill children. He’s no better than Voldemort. He allows them to treat his mastitis – and oh, that’s what the burning pain was – but he refuses to talk to any Mind Healers. What’s the point? He might as well not be a parent anymore. He gave up any rights he had the moment he began to move his hand in the bath.  
  
Hermione takes one look at him in the hospital bed and bursts into tears.  
  
“We were so worried, Harry.” He cringes and scratches at the back of his wrist. It’s already raw from all the people who’ve attempted to speak to him today.  
  
“I’m sorry.” He doesn’t have much else to say. This isn’t enough for Ron. For once, Harry can’t decipher the expression on his face.  
  
“I don’t understand. Why’d you close us all out? We would’ve helped you if we knew you couldn’t do it.” Couldn’t do it. Failure. He doesn’t need his best friends looking at him with horror at what he’s been reduced to.  
  
“I’m a shit dad,” he says. “You wouldn’t understand,” he continues, trying to prevent them from disagreeing with him. The words are like glue in his throat. Mr and Mrs Weasley, his parents… Hell, even the Dursleys and Malfoys were more suited to this than him. “If you guys had kids, you’d be great parents. I just…” He can’t force any more words out and he begins to hyperventilate once more. Hermione and Ron are bustled out and a Calming potion is shoved down his throat. Maybe if he stays sedated, he won’t hurt anyone else.  
  
**  
  
“Is it true that your actions endangered –”  
  
“Mr Potter, how do you feel about –”  
  
“Harry! Harry, over here!”  
  
He can hear them clamouring outside the block of flats and it feels like it’s making him even crazier if that’s at all possible. He sits underneath the window in his bedroom, the only place where it seems they can’t get a good picture of him. He isn’t sure how they found out, but he’s now too terrified to leave. He’s gaunt – he has hardly eaten since James was taken, and deep, dark circles have embedded themselves under his eyes.  
  
They keep trying to get him to visit Draco to see James but he’s refused thus far. Dealing with seeing the child he’s betrayed and his smug ex-husband all at once? Fat chance.  
  
He hears the Floo whoosh and goes to placate Molly some more or tell Ginny he’s not in the mood for company. It’s neither of them though. He freezes and a whimper escapes from his mouth.  
  
“Harry, I’m not going to hurt you,” Draco says. Harry is barely listening, his eyes are so fixed upon the baby sleeping peacefully in his arms. James never did that with him.  
  
“He’s so quiet,” Harry whispers. He doesn’t want to disturb the baby’s slumber. James is also much bigger than the last time Harry saw him, and Harry’s arms raise to take him before realising that he can’t do that anymore. Mustn’t.  
  
“He had colic. He wasn’t crying because of you. Sometimes babies just –” No. Harry can’t listen to this again. They’ve said this so many times, but he can’t believe it to be true.  
  
“I tried to kill him.” Harry is frank. He wants this danger out of his house before something bad happens. He can’t be trusted around this vulnerable infant, even with Draco here to protect James.  
  
Draco doesn’t say anything for a long while, and Harry begins to shift uncomfortably.  
  
“Harry…” he begins, and Harry can see his throat working as he swallows. “I am sorry,” he continues, and Harry is so bewildered by the words that he is unable to respond. Draco has always pushed away with one hand and pulled with the other but it’s been so long since Harry was under Draco’s influence that he’s forgotten how earnest Draco can – pretend to? – be.  
  
“I’m sorry that I fucked up our relationship. I’m sorry for being cold. I’m sorry for never being there; for breaking your nose; for calling Granger a mudblood and generally being a massive arsehole. But _please_ , you have to realise that you _didn’t_ hurt him. You must have been half out of your mind with infection – they think if you’d left it another week, you’d have died.” Harry shakes his head, but he’s not sure why. Draco is advancing and Harry soon finds himself pressed against a wall. He begins to tremble but stills when a soft bundle is pressed against his crossed arms. His traitorous arms open immediately and before he can say no, a solid weight is deposited into his dubious care.  
  
In the weeks he has been away, James’s face has become much more expressive, and he blinks open sleep-softened eyes. His mouth purses into an ‘o’, and Harry looks frantically at his ex-husband.  
  
“Calm down,” Draco says, already rooting around in the bag slung over his shoulder. Harry flushes bright red and starts to unbutton his shirt. They’d put him back on the milk-producing potions to flush out the last of the infection, and he’s gotten so used to taking them and chucking out the unneeded milk that they cause him to produce that he’d almost forgotten their original purpose. James mouths across Harry’s chest before latching on with a soft sigh like he’s coming home. Harry hadn’t been sure he still knew how to. The suckling noise startles Draco out of his search and Harry ducks his head in mortification.  
  
“Oh,” Draco says. Harry doesn’t know what that means, but he hopes it’s not bad. Draco strokes the dark head of their child, careful not to dislodge him and Harry closes his eyes in tentative contentment.  
  
**  
  
“That, Potter, is a horrendous colour.”  
  
Harry’s back stiffens and he stops painting. He should have known that this wouldn’t work, that Draco would–  
  
“I’m not serious, Harry.” A strong arm winds its way over his hunched shoulders and Draco grabs the paintbrush, continuing to paint as if he hadn’t said anything. Slowly, Harry’s spine straightens and he picks up another roller, dipping it into the tray of paint.  
  
“I like doing this the Muggle way,” Draco says, obviously ready for another one-sided conversation. Sometimes Harry gets so angry with Draco that he can’t speak and Draco is probably anticipating his silence. Harry knows he’s trying though, and that’s what stops him from snapping. There are frequent apologies, but Harry thinks that the events of the past two years have taught them that as long as neither of them hits the other, they’re probably fine for now.  
  
“It’s therapeutic. And takes my mind off the fact I’m painting my son’s room Gryffindor red. He’ll be a Slytherin, you mark my words,” Draco chuckles. Harry doesn’t tell Draco that he’s not too sure their son will be welcomed in Slytherin, what with his impure blood and the misfortune of being born to the Boy-Who-Lived. But he’s learnt to keep such thoughts to himself.  
  
“I hope he’s a ‘Puff,” is what he does say, with a wry smile. Draco’s chatter ceases and he stares at Harry with disgust. Harry doesn’t mind – he sees the playful light in Draco’s eyes.  
  
“Sadly, as you’ve managed to convince me to paint the outside of the house buttercup yellow, that’s a distinct and depressing possibility,” Draco says, performing perfectly the sigh of the long suffering partner.  
  
Harry’s friends don’t approve, of course. Why would they? Harry and Draco have proven to be incompatible in practically every way. Harry just wants a family of his own. It’s all he’s ever wanted. Here is one ready-made for him. The flat, which became bleaker and bleaker after every visit from Draco and James, had begun to drive Harry back into despair. When Draco had tentatively extended an offer to move into a spare room of the old house, Harry hadn’t taken long to decide. He had soon transferred his possessions back – despise the house though he did – and, one day, completely unsolicited, Draco had pushed a book of colour samples across the table to Harry.  
  
“Thought you might like to redecorate,” he’d said, shrugging nonchalantly. The burn behind Harry’s eyes had been hard to suppress.  
  
They haven’t fucked yet, and Harry doesn’t even know whether he ever wants to be that close to Draco again, but having a baby to take care of keeps them – or at least Harry – busy enough that he’s able to avoid the matter entirely past some awkwardly intense moments and rough groping. It’s strange pretending that the history behind them doesn’t exist, that they’d never married and divorced. Eventually they’ll have to sort through all of that baggage. Harry doesn’t want to think that far ahead.  
  
“He’s only just a year old. I’ve time to indoctrinate him into the right way of things.” Harry forces himself to take this as the joke it is, but it’s hard when he’s reminded so suddenly of Lucius Malfoy. “How else will he know that eggs should always be sunny-side-up, not burnt to within an inch of their lives?” Draco stares at Harry pointedly and Harry lets out a sharp, surprised laugh. Draco’s eyes contain a mischievous grin in them, though his mouth remains stern.  
  
Harry doesn’t know how long this détente will last. His mind drifts towards the picture of the two of them in the park, before all of this crap happened and knows that they will never return to that. Harry won’t let them. With no arguments to fill his time, Harry has a lot of space in his day for thinking. He knows that there are two sides to Draco Malfoy. There is the side that cares deeply for James and can joke around with the other father despite their differences. That side never brings up the Granger-Weasleys. That side wakes up in the middle of the night to calm James down.  
  
There is also the side of Draco that called Hermione a mudblood just to spite Harry, just so he could push Harry to his limit. Draco wanted Harry to be the one to break things off because he wanted to be the one to fix them. This side broke Harry’s nose. Twice. This side made it so that Harry’s access to James lasts only as long as Draco tolerates him. This side hides his nature like the most cunning snake. This side sneers at house elves. This side is a blood supremacist that hates Harry, friends, his beliefs and everything Harry stands for. This side manipulates Harry into coming back time and time again before Harry even realises that’s what he’s doing. Really, Draco only has one side. It’s just that one covers itself with the façade of the other and Draco can shed his persona like snakeskin.  
  
Even as Harry thinks this, he looks towards Draco, who is humming a tune Harry doesn’t recognise. He has a smudge of paint on his cheekbone. Harry’s eyes narrow and any mirth he had been feeling dissipates. No matter what’s going on in Draco’s head, Harry knows his own mind. He’ll be the one in control this time. Harry’s stretches a hand out to wipe the paint away with a swipe of his thumb. The tan line from where his ring used to be oddly hasn’t faded. Draco turns his head towards Harry, confused. Harry doesn’t give him time to speak. He leans forwards, knocking over the paint tin, and kisses him. Draco’s eyes fall shut but Harry keeps his open. The only sounds for a moment are those from their heavy breathing.  
  
“What was that for?” Draco asks a bit later, when they’ve separated and their clothes are straightened. His face is flushed a light pink and his hair is in disarray from where Harry’s hands were running through it.  
  
“Just felt like it,” Harry replies. He smiles, and if it doesn’t reach his eyes, Draco doesn’t notice. Draco goes back to painting and Harry gets up.  
  
“I’m going to go make some tea,” he says. If he’s fucked up and needlessly untrusting, it’s Draco that made him this way.  
  
As he walks past James’s room, Harry pauses to watch his son nap. Neither him nor Draco deserve this boy.  
  
Harry wonders when it will all end again.


End file.
